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Experienced cave guide Ian Fox postponed a school group tour at Waipū Caves Farm Park due to wet weather, just hours before helping emergency services in their search for a missing student at Abbey Caves.
He has been involved in training rescue teams over the last four years and said it was appropriate that he helped out at Abbey Caves on Tuesday. He arrived at the caves late morning and left about 4pm — before the Whangārei Boys’ High School student’s body was recovered.
“Before I even got down to the cave, I got shown a picture and I had a feeling what the outcome would be,” he said.
Fox runs the Waipū Caves Farm Park and said while caves were an environment with immense beauty which were full of potential adventure, they have a stream system running through them and could be a dangerous place in the wrong circumstances.
He said a school group booked not just a standard cave tour but a geology lesson with his business scheduled for Tuesday morning, but after a discussion with a teacher of that school, decided to cancel the trip.
Ian Fox, the owner of Waipu Cave Farm Park. Photo / Michael Craig
Fox would neither get drawn into what happened during the search and rescue operation at Abbey Caves on Tuesday nor react to criticism the school should have pulled the plug on the cave tour given the weather warning.
“No matter how much paperwork there is, humans will always make mistakes. And they will always look back at their mistakes with regret. That’s just human nature.
“This is a very sad thing, but you can’t stop people [from] having adventures. All the rescue people did a great job,” he said.
A live cave system, he said, was effectively similar to any stream or river which could flood but with the added dynamics of having rocks all around and a roof at various heights.
Abbey Caves, pictured, is a short system with three small caves in a line which cavers consider relatively easy to traverse in fine weather. Photo / PhotoPhill
He has been to Abbey Caves numerous times and said the Organ Cave, where the students were, was the most upstream — one that was most suited to novice, beginner cavers, or adventure caving.
The entrance into that cave was a section of collapsed roof — part of a cave’s evolution system — and people climbed down on to rubble which ranged in size from that of a chilly bin right through to refrigerators or small cars, he said.
Once one climbed down that rubble into the stream system, Fox said they have a roof above them at that point.
The whole hydrology system of the environment needed to be studied in terms of caving, he said.
“In summer, the ground is dry. When it rains at a slower pace, most of that water would be absorbed into the ground and you may not see any change in stream water flows. When the ground is saturated, whatever rain flows is going to flow off.”
Fox said his understanding was the water level rose “very rapidly” at Abbey Caves on Tuesday morning.
He didn’t believe the tragedy on Tuesday would put people off from exploring caves.
“People should have the opportunity of experiencing the sensation of exploring. You will learn more, and grow more as a person when you are self-exploring.”
